


For Eternity

by hannah_bo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: After Life, M/M, Past Character Death, angst with happy ending, post death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 19:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16311281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannah_bo/pseuds/hannah_bo
Summary: It wasn’t like Derek didn’t think he was ever going to die. He was a werewolf, not immortal. It would take a hell of a lot to take him down or old age but it would happen. He’d brushed by death so many times he knew it was inevitable.





	For Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this post I saw on Tumblr:  
> "It would be cool if after you died you could see the top 5 times you almost died" 
> 
> And gentle nudging from Adri to write it.

It wasn’t like Derek didn’t think he was ever going to die. He was a werewolf, not immortal. It would take a hell of a lot to take him down or old age but it would happen. He’d brushed by death so many times he knew it was inevitable. But it didn’t in anyway prepare him for when it happened.

He’d seen the hunter level his shotgun at Scott and without even thinking twice he’d put himself between the two. The pack couldn’t lose Scott. They had lost too much and that would be the final straw. No one would recover. It wasn’t that Derek WANTED to die. He would have been okay to go on living. It was that he so desperately didn’t want SCOTT to die. The wolfsbane burned through his body, acting faster than any strain he had ever encountered. They were too far from Deaton, there wasn’t a way they couldn’t counteract this. Not without Stiles. He heard Malia take down the hunter as he lay on the floor of the forest, the trees just sparse enough that he could see the stars burning brightly above. He could hear Scott telling him to stay with them, feel him trying to leech the pain from him but it didn’t hurt. Scott knew that. His big brown eyes and floppy curls came into Derek’s vision and he smiled.

“You’ve been, an excellent alpha,” he managed to grit out

“No don’t do that, come on Derek. Hang on,” was the earnest reply.

“Scott, it’s fine. You’ll be fine. You’ll all be okay.” Scott nodded, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Tell them we say hi, okay?”

Derek nodded and his focus, or what was left of it, returned to the stars. He had people waiting beyond them. He’d be fine. The warmth from Scott’s hand faded and everything went black.

He woke up in the loft. Well a version of the loft. He knew he was dead but waking up in his bed was not what he had expected. He felt for the wound on his chest, where the bullet had lodged but felt nothing. All his scars had vanished.

“It’s weird isn’t it? The scar thing,” an all too familiar voice said from the next room. And then Laura was leaning against the door jam smiling at him. “Ya know they had all told me how grumpy you could be and about your loft but damn Der, this is a lot.”

“This isn’t what it looks like now. Sti-the pack helped me make it more home like,” he said before realizing what was happening. “Wait. Laura, what...”

“They always say that the person you miss most will greet you, but that’s so not true. It’s definitely in the top five so I’m not offended,” her eyes softened and she came to sit next to him. “It’s good to see you bro.” Tears welled up in Derek’s eyes. All the things he’s wished he could say to her fading on his tongue. He settled for wrapping his arms around her and reveling in her heartbeat. She laughed softly and returned the hug.

“So this is it? Post death is my loft?” He asked pulling away.

“Your brain gives you a familiar place to start from. Surprised it’s this and not home,” she said standing from the bed and offering her hand. “Come on, we’ve got a lot to cover.” He stood with her and walked through the door and into the preserve. He glanced around but the door they had come through was already gone. “Yeah it’s unnerving. You’ll get used to in in a few.” Laura started walking and stopped in front of their home. Whole and unburnt. He could hear his family inside, smell whatever his dad was cooking. Before he could ask what was happening he saw his younger self and younger Laura sprint by.

“What is this?”

“When is this would be a better question,” Laura said smiling after their younger selves. “That’s you at 8. The first time you almost died.”

“What?”

“Oh did I not mention that? This is your greatest hits tour Der. Four times you were closest to death, the one time death got you. I guess it’s some sort of way to remind you that you’ve had a lot of time? I dunno. I’ve been dead for over a decade and I still don’t know why they make us do this.” Derek turned towards the sound of he and Laura playing from the back of the house. He rounded the corner and saw Laura sitting on his chest arms crossed.

“I’m not letting you go till you eat it,” she said. It was a familiar scene. Laura using her strength as an advantage over him until he finally outgrew her.

“Wow I was so mean to you,” said the Laura he had entered the scene with. Derek snorted softly and nodded, unable to take his eyes off of what was happening in front of him. Of course he remembered how this went, he ate the plant, pushed Laura off of him and ran around for another fifteen minutes before the mistletoe worked into his system. He watched the 8-year-old version of himself drop, saw Laura turn around and scream for their mom. Seeing Talia Hale come running out of the back door made Derek’s heart squeeze in his chest. 

“Mom,” he breathed as he moved forward. Laura’s hand wrapped around his shoulder holding him in place. 

“You’ll see them, really see them soon, come on. We have more to see.” The scene before them dissolved and sharpened into a parking lot. Derek saw himself stumble into the way of a bright blue Jeep, and huffed out a laugh that caught in his throat. He couldn’t see Stiles, but he could hear him. 

“I honestly thought he was going to pass out,” he said as he watched himself get hauled into the car by a very young Scott. “They were so young.”

“Yeah because 22 was so damn old,” he turned to see Laura watching the scene with a great interest. “Scott seems like he grew up. Guess living on a supernatural beacon does that to you.” Before Derek could really process what she had said the world got darker and he saw himself on the table at Deaton’s animal clinic as Stiles and Scott watched Derek get bullet and wolfsbane out of his system. 

“That was awesome,” Stiles exclaimed. 

“Except for the agonizing pain,” the other Derek snarled back. 

“Guessing the ability to use sarcasm is a good sign of health,” Stiles replied with a smirk. Derek remembered how angry it had made him. How long Scott had taken, how ineffective he had thought they were. But Stiles had stayed with him, even when he had clearly wanted to be anywhere but there. Maybe it was for Scott at the end of the day, but it had meant something then and it meant something now. He felt Laura tug at the sleeve of his shirt and he turned away from his younger self to her. 

“We gotta go,” she said pointing towards the door. With a last glance over his shoulder, he followed her through the door and into the pool at Beacon Hills High School. He watched as the Kanima got Derek, watched Stiles drag him along the pool, drop him and then dive in after him. 

“We were in there for so long,” Derek muttered. “I was so sure he was going to let me go, and he just...didn’t.” 

“He knew you were important, even if he didn’t necessarily know how to get you to cooperate,” Laura replied softly. 

“How do you know these things?” he asked, turning to her, arms crossed.

“Erica likes to talk,” she said with a small smile and a shrug. 

“Erica’s here?” 

“They’re all here Derek. You’ll see them soon, I already told you. We just need to get through this.” She turned back to the pool, a smile on her face. “God, he was so skinny.” As Stiles pulled Derek to the side of the pool the scene faded away again, Stiles’ desperate voice ringing in Derek’s ears. 

“Laura how many more of these do I have to do?” 

“Just two more, then you get to see everyone.” 

“You keep saying that, like I’m expected to know who that is.”

“Oh Der, you did always miss the big pictures didn’t you.” 

“Laura…”

“Oh look! You’re almost dying again.” She pointed to something else forming in front of him.

“You sound entirely too thrilled about that,” Derek groussed, earning an elbow in the side. 

“Oh come on, you’re already dead, doesn’t matter now does it?” Derek rolled his eyes and turned towards the next event. It was dark, loud gunfire set Derek’s nerves on edge. He couldn’t place this moment, this event wasn’t ringing any bells, until--

“Heya Sourwolf,” Stiles said from Derek’s left. He turned and saw Stiles crouching next to himself, arm around his shoulders. “Good to see you buddy.” 

Derek remembered that moment intimately. He remembered the feeling of warmth and relief that cascaded through him when Stiles had materialized next to him. It had been years since they had seen each other and all of the lingering adolescence had disappeared from Stiles. He had grown up quickly in Beacon Hills, dealing with what he had. The Nogitsune had aged him years on it’s own. But all the growing up had happened physically in the last few years. Broad shoulders, sharpened facial features all knocking Derek off balance. That, he remembered. Stiles may have exaggerated a bit about how much he saved Derek that night, but he HAD saved him. Thirty seconds after Stiles had come up next to him, he drug him out a back door. Derek and Laura followed. Derek saw the bullet graze the side of his arm right after Stiles knocked him out of the way. Watched as Stiles quickly burned the wolfsbane out of his system, fingers quick and nibble. Stiles producing an FBI vest out of nowhere. Hadn’t taken more than four steps before someone was shooting at their feet. Naturally Stiles’ had been hit. Derek looped Stiles’ arm around his neck and somehow got them past the rest of the FBI team. Derek spotted the jeep of all things sitting near the gate of the warehouse, and rolled his eyes, but got them there and into the relative safety of the jeep. 

“So that’s when you knew?” Laura asked from Derek’s side.

“What?” 

“Knew you loved him.” Derek inhaled sharply, watching the taillights of the Jeep fade into the darkness. “Come on Derek, I know things. Comes as an after life perk.” 

“I don’t...I don’t know,” he sighed, shoulders slumping forward. “I think it was before that. Maybe the Nogitsune. The fear of him not coming back to us. To me.” He looked at Laura, her eyes soft and knowing. “We didn’t talk about it until everything was settled back in at Quantico. He called me, we talked. We realized we’d both been...feeling things for a while. I was so scared. He was so good, and I just, ruined everything.” He held up a hand as Laura opened her mouth. “I had, up to that point, not had a great track record for romance, that you can admit right?”

“You fell for two psychos consecutively, it could happen to anyone,” Laura smirked. Something in Derek’s heart softened, she had never blamed him for Kate. She wouldn’t have for Jennifer either. No one did. But himself. 

“As it were, it was what I was feeling and fighting. And then things were so good. It worked. We worked. The pack worked.”

“And then…” Laura trailed off looking over his shoulder. 

Derek turned and saw it. The blue Jeep tangled into the side of a tree, a second vehicle crashed into the driver’s side.

“Laura…”

“I don’t pick the things you see Der. Trust me, I wouldn't put you through this if I did.” Derek walked forward, closer to the scene. Parrish directing the EMT’s and trying to keep the Sheriff calm. Scott pulling up on his motorcycle and immediately trying to tear a door off the Jeep. Then he showed up. Scott trying to calm him. The EMT’s getting Stiles out of the Jeep, limp and mangled. Scott turning and vomiting at the overwhelming smell of blood and pain. Then the Sheriff turned to him and told him to get into the ambulance with his son. 

“You can take his pain Derek, help him. I can’t,” he had said and climbed into the cruiser to follow. The pain coming to Derek in waves, nauseating him at the volume. 

“Stay with me Stiles, just stay with me, please.” Stiles’ hand had twitched in his as he turned to look at him past the oxygen and the EMT. Derek had never seen this amount of fear in Stiles’ eyes. Not when the Darach had his dad, not even when he had separated from the Nogitsune and seen what his hands had done without him. 

“Mr. Stilinski you have to stay still, we need to keep you stable,” the EMT at the top of Stiles’ gurney said. 

“Still isn’t my best trait,” Stiles murmured before coughing up more blood. He looked at Derek, eyes softening slightly. “Hey Sourwolf, I…”

“Shh stay still Stiles. It’s okay I’ve got you.”

“Derek, I…” Stiles’ breathing became more strained, the heart monitor sounded sharply. And then Derek couldn’t take Stiles’ pain. And then Stiles’ hand was taken from his grasp, into the ER where Melissa McCall took charge. But he knew. It had stopped hurting. Stiles wasn’t going to squirm his way out of this one. A nurse next to Melissa called time of death and the world went silent. Derek saw his past self drop into a chair. He had never quite known what happened after he heard the nurse call Stiles’ death. He remembered Melissa letting him see him after they had stitched him up and cleaned off the blood, after the sheriff had cried over his son’s body, and Scott had said goodbye to his brother. 

“Derek, honey do you…” Melissa had started to ask a question but never got to the end of it. Derek’s tears had shocked her into silence. “Oh honey.” She wrapped him up in a hug that seemed to engulf his frame. 

“A car crash? How can he have survived what he has survived just to be taken out by a car crash?” he sobbed into her shoulder. 

“I don’t know honey. I truly don’t. I wish I had the answers, and I don’t.”

“He was coming to see me, he was on his way to the loft,” he said trying to reign his tears in. “He’s been helping me make it better and he was coming over to see the final paint color. If he hadn’t…”

“Derek Samuel Hale,” she said pulling away from him to look him in the eye. “You do not get to do that. This is not your fault. This in no way is your fault. You have lived in guilt for long enough, this is not something to add to that all too long list. You loved him. He loved you. Revel in that. Do not let this ruin all of the things that you two had. Stiles loved you with everything he had. We could all see it. I’ll give you a moment.” She squeezed his arm and closed the door behind her. 

“Damnit Stiles,” that Derek muttered as he sank into the chair next to his bed. He felt Laura’s hand take his own as he watched himself look at Stiles. 

“I was going to ask him to move in with me,” he told Laura. “He had been in San Francisco for three years with the FBI, but he had just moved back. The small town sheriff thing was more appealing than he had originally thought. He had been over so much to help with the loft and I just had gotten used to him being there that I didn’t want him to not be there.”

“Oh Derek,” Laura gripped his hand tighter as the scene faded. 

“Why would I have to see…” 

“Derek,” Laura’s voice made him stop. 

“I wanted to die. I wished I would die.”

“It’s time for me to go.”

“What? Why?”

“Just for right now, you’ve got someone you need to see,” she squeezed his arm as she walked by him. “I’ll see you soon okay? You’ll see us all soon. Mom’s reluctantly excited to see you.” She smiled at him, warming his soul. “I love you little bro.”

“I love you too, Laura.” 

And then she was gone. He stuffed his hand in his pocket and let out a heavy sigh. The light disappeared, trees appearing around him. He heard Scott’s roar, saw the hunter raise the shotgun. He watched himself step in front of the gun, but watched the stars as the gun went off. He knew he was dead, he had been there the first time it happened, he didn’t feel like watching it. 

“That was pretty heroic big guy,” a voice said behind him. Derek’s shoulders stiffened as he turned. He was back in his loft, this time the version he had left that morning, before he died. Stiles was leaning against the counter in the kitchen, mug in his hands. “You look pretty good for a dead guy.”

Derek’s heart felt like it was in his throat, not quite believing what he was seeing. Stiles, whole and healed, nothing like the body he had seen when he said goodbye. He was afraid to blink in case Stiles vanished, but he didn’t. He just lifted his mug, to his lips and took a sip, eyes locked on Derek. He could feel the blood creep into his cheeks and ears, as it always did under Stiles’ gaze. 

“Stiles.”

“In the flesh,” he said, smirking. Derek slowly walked towards him, lifting a hand to touch his face, and then dropped it. “You can touch, I won’t disappear.” Stiles reached out and took Derek’s hand. “See, we’re both here. Which honestly as happy as I am to see you, I was hoping it’d be a bit longer.” 

“Five years not enough time away from me?” Derek managed around the lump in his throat. 

“Much too long Sourwolf,” Stiles set the mug down and wrapped his arms around Derek. Derek held him as tightly as he could. 

“God Stiles it’s been so hard,” he said into Stiles’ hair. 

“I know, I saw you guys. You did good though. You and Scott,” Stiles said pulling out of Derek’s hold. “Thank you by the way, it sure as hell isn’t his time yet. Not that I think it should be yours I just...it’s Scotty you know? And I--” 

“I get it, why do you think I stepped in front of that shot gun?” he looked at Stiles, the same as he had been five years ago. Perpetually 28, when Derek had almost made it to 40. 

“Hey, what’s going on in there,” Stiles asked tapping Derek’s temple. “You don’t get to frown this quickly after seeing me.”

“I got old.” Stiles smiled, eyes sparkling in the low light. 

“I’m really digging the grey actually. Very silver fox. Or wolf I guess.”

“It makes me look old, Stiles.” Stiles shrugged and moved to put his mug in the sink. 

“You got to live, you got to age,” he said, turning back to Derek. “That’s something you should be excited about. Especially in our lives. Who knows, maybe Scott will show up here at 80 and we can all laugh at him.”

“Laura kept saying ‘all’ and ‘us’. Who does that entail.”

“Everyone Der. Your family. Erica, Boyd. Alison,” Stiles’ smile grew at her name. “I even met Paige when I first got here. I bet she’d be happy to see you. Alison wanted to know how her dad was, how Scott was. I told her we’d stop by later.”

“Stop by?”

“Yeah, we all have our own space. The place that our soul finds the most comfort in, it’s kind of our own personal heaven. But we can go visit everyone else. Your whole family lives in your childhood home. Much cooler when it’s not a burnt out shell let me tell you. My mom’s is our house. But stuck when she died so that was weird to walk into.” 

“Your mom? Can I meet her?” 

“Duh, she’s been waiting to meet you.”

“Stiles, who walked you through your… all that?” 

“Alison.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah,” Stiles nodded. “The person I loved most who was here was my mom, so I got to see her after I watched myself die, which honestly I needed. That was…” he shuddered, and Derek felt his heart clench. “Anyway. Yeah Alison walked me around. I think it was good. I needed it. To see her. For her to remind me she loved me, and that she didn’t… she didn’t blame me, ya know?”

“Laura and I had a similar conversation.” 

“God I love Laura. She’s kept me busy here the last five years.”

“There’s a lot I need to catch up on, huh?”

“Sure is,” Stiles leaned back against the counter. “Love what you’ve done with the place, by the way. The kitchen was still half painted last time I saw it. You did good.”

“You helped.”

“Yeah I did,” Stiles grinned. “I would have said yes, you know. To moving in.” He looked Derek in the eye, smile small. “As it happens, my space or heaven, whatever, was your loft. But ya know, stuck in permanent mid-renovation for the last five years so I’m glad you’re here. It completed it. Literally and figuratively.” 

“I love you,” Derek blurted out. “I spent weeks after you died trying to remember the last time I had said that to you, and I couldn’t. I finally realized it was the Sunday before you… before. At the BBQ at your dad’s. I hadn’t said it to you in four days and I have spent everyday of the last five years wishing I could say it to you one more time.” Stiles pushed off of the counter and into Derek’s space, smiling. 

 

“Well you can tell me everyday, for eternity,” he said before pulling Derek into a kiss. It wasn’t what Derek had imagined when he’d thought of another kiss with Stiles. It wasn’t desperate, or needy. It was solid and sure. A kiss when you knew you had forever to kiss the person you loved. And Derek still felt it all the way down to his toes. 

“Missed this,” Stiles murmured against his lips before pulling back to look at him. “Missed you.”

“Missed you too, Stiles. Everyday.” The smile Derek got in return was blinding. 

“Come on Sourwolf, there’s people waiting to see you,” he threaded their fingers together and led them to the front door. “Then we’ve got a lot of lost time to make up.” Derek squeezed Stiles’ hand, reveling in the way it felt to touch him again. He let Stiles lead him out of the loft and into the yard of the Hale House. He had known for over a decade that he would follow Stiles anywhere, and now he could.

For eternity.


End file.
